Netflix Ousts Bela Bajaria, Installs Peter Rice Amid 1,000 Layoffs

By Elena Vasquez

Netflix replaced chief content officer Bela Bajaria with Peter Rice on Thursday, just two days after cutting 1,000 jobs. The layoffs, implemented Tuesday and Wednesday, removed 6% of the company's workforce — roughly one in seventeen employees.

Rice takes over the post Bajaria held, ending a tenure that collapsed in a single hallway conversation.

How did Bajaria learn she was out?

Multiple sources say Bajaria confronted Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos on Wednesday evening at the streamer's Hollywood offices. The exchange came just before a private Los Angeles screening for Season 3 of the comedy "Nobody Wants This." Neither Sarandos nor Bajaria appears in the event's publicity photos.

Bajaria asked point-blank whether the rumors were true. Sarandos — who reportedly planned to break the news on Monday — told her at that moment.

The ouster has angered executives and talent inside and outside the company. One prominent agent framed it as a cultural shift.

"We don't live in Hollywood right now. We live in Silicon Valley," the agent said.

"It feels like more of a tech approach than a studio approach to letting someone go. It's shameful, it sucks and it adds to the feeling that we're all working by Silicon Valley rules," the agent added.

Bajaria declined to comment. Sources say she has told friends she is shell-shocked. On Monday, she had accepted the Vanguard Award from Variety and Mipcom on stage in Cannes.

Takeaway: a four-day span took Bajaria from an awards podium in Cannes to an abrupt exit in Hollywood.

Where does Peter Rice come from?

Rice is the former chief of Fox Searchlight and Fox Networks Group. He joined Disney in 2019 as its top TV executive and was fired during the Chapek regime.

His path back began with a dinner. Rice met Ynon Kreiz in late September, days before Kreiz left the Mattel CEO job to become co-chief executive of Skydance with David Ellison. The New York Post's Page Six reported the meal after Kreiz's Skydance appointment, triggering speculation that Kreiz was recruiting Rice — in fact, Kreiz wanted Rice on Mattel's board.

Media coverage of that courtship, per the source report, helped push Netflix to move fast. Rice had told friends as recently as two weeks ago that he had no interest in returning to an executive role.

In his first memo to staff, Rice stressed the need for more buzzy hits in the "UCAN" market — Netflix's term for the United States and Canada. The phrasing has raised questions about whether Netflix will stay as aggressive in local-language content as it was under Bajaria.

What happens to Dan Lin and Jinny Howe?

Attention now turns to Bajaria's two top lieutenants:

• Dan Lin, film chief for two and a half years, ended the lavish spending of the Scott Stuber era and backed acquisitions including "Emilia Pérez" and the Oscar contender "La Bola Negra." Numerous reports suggest he will exit as Rice takes power.
• Jinny Howe, U.S. and Canada scripted head since August 2025, appears safe. Her slate includes Meryl Streep in "The Corrections," Adam Driver and Michael Fassbender in "Rabbit, Rabbit," Martin Scorsese's "The Roman" and "Scooby-Doo: Origins."

"They want her to stay," one source said. "If she left, that'd be a disaster for them."

The timing is delicate. Netflix launches Greta Gerwig's "Narnia: The Magician's Nephew" with a full theatrical release in February. The rumor mill has already floated ousted Warner Bros. Pictures chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy as possible Lin replacements.

Is Netflix shopping for a studio?

The upheaval, combined with signals insiders read into the layoffs, has renewed speculation that Netflix will pursue a major studio or other significant content assets. NBCUniversal is the logical target. Comcast will spin it out next year, making it a far smaller and more manageable acquisition than Comcast in its entirety.

Some observers also ask whether Sarandos just hired his own successor in Rice — should the stock keep suffering and the company need further changes, Rice's experience makes him a candidate for the top job.

Netflix reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 20. The week's off-screen drama, as the source report puts it, has outpaced anything the service will stream this year.